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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Readers: On Writing

My wife and I spend every evening in our "library". The TV is never on. Okay, I did watch the Super Bowl and the Final Four (MSU should have been there). If I get up to make some after dinner peach tea, I often stop to admire our books on the shelves. While the tea is steeping, maybe I'll pull down a book I read years ago, look over my notes in the back, or dwell on some excerpts I've underlined. Last night I rediscovered a book that people who fly fish would like, but it's also about writing. I picked it up at Schuler Books, in 1990, here in Grand Rapids. This is a superb, independent book store. So few of them left.

The book is What the River Knows - An Angler in Midstream, by Wayne Fields c 1990. (WayneFields) Listen to the accuracy as he describes the struggle to transfer our sensory input into mere words:

"Even as I take in this place, delight in its patterns and colors, I despair of ever being able to recompose it... I am not so arrogant that I write to tell some great truth, that I think the world has much to gain from my undersized hands; I write in the hope of crafting a page, a paragraph, even a line that is filled with the grace I lack, that sings with a voice beyond mine. I write in the hope of forgiveness, in the hope of making something better than myself. What I have seen can never make it from my mind to the page with the lyric power of this landscape..."

Whew! That is a keeper of an excerpt for Nature Writers, but I will follow the catch and release rule.

As I was scanning Wayne Fields' book, I recalled a piece I wrote in 1994 while with fellow teachers at a Peninsula Writers (Peninsula Writers) retreat on Glen Lake. This is very near Michigan's famous Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (Sleeping Bear). This is an essay called Receiving a River with two poems placed within it, like boulders in midstream. The essay is too long for now, but here are the two poems:

Boardman River

Swift, flat surfacerich in texture.Your water wrinkles.Fluid,folding upon yourselfwhile flowing.

Like lines on topographic maps,curving while parallel,edge over edgewater upon water.Forming, re-forming.Appearing, disappearing.

Reappearing.Magic water.Art in motion.Swirling with poetrygliding among the Alderslike time flowing forward.

I would like to share the essays in the future. They are about a few of our local streams; Flat River, and Honey Creek. You must eat at Honey Creek Inn, (Honey Creek Inn) here in Cannonsburg. Tell Don "Hi"for me. Here comes the other poem, which could be experienced at all of Michigan's 12,000 lakes and along our thousands of miles of rivers and streams.

Reading a River(Great Blue Heron)

Wadingon legsyellow scaledstiff as sticks.

Reachingwith neckgray featheredsupple as a snake.

Staringthrough eyesstone hardfixed as the stars.

I want to thank Linda Rief for publishing my essay/poems in WORKSHOP 6 by and for teachers:The Teacher As Writer, edited by Maureen Barbieri & Linda Rief, c 1994. (Linda Rief) Linda has worked at U. New Hampshire, and Oyster Creek Middle School. Linda, we need to reconnect.

Readers' Comments

"Happened across Richard while walking along Honey Creek. A wonderfully divine spirit as you may guess from his writings. I have been following him ever since. Thanks for accepting the assignment, Richard. He is glorified!" ~ Bill Sleeman - CEO/President @ Proteus Innovative Technologies - Grand Rapids, Michigan

"I think of you and your calling in life during your encore years. You help others experience awe! What greater thing could you do with your gifts? Thank you for all that you do. You bless me richly." ~ Jill Harkema - Grand Rapids Foundation - "Encore Program"

"Superb! Richard, because you are paying attention to the beauty around you, we are blessed. Thank you. - Carol O'Casey - Oregon - Author/Blogger: "The Divine Nature Project".

"Your blog is beautiful. May you continue to glorify God with your creative gifts and inspire others to seek Him... in all that they do." - Danielle Street - New Jersey - Author/Blogger: "Journey Towards Maturity"

"Richard: It has been a blessing to find and follow your WWFN site. Your words capture and articulate what my heart feels... the gifts of nature on earth are just the beginning of our joy. The imagery is beautiful and the Haiku so very anticipatory and intimate. You have a gift for making people think and ask questions... and leave them wanting more." - Leilani Carroll - R.N., Child of God, Christian Servant. Birmingham, Alabama

"Your photography is admirable, and your Poetry using the images is effective and compelling and is a forever language. Nature is the art of God. I wish you the higher points and more blessings. With respect and admiration, Maryam Sepasi - Iran

"I like "Box Turtle Poem" so much! I plan to read a lot more of your writing -- it is simply told, and subtly informative. A sense of wonder in our natural world is woven into your voice. To inspire wonder -- what better calling or purpose than this?" - Bonnie Roberts - Alabama - Poet, Editor, Publisher @ "Mule on a Ferris Wheel"